


Date With A Dragon Slayer

by marryingthebed



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dragon Slayer AU, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2470847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marryingthebed/pseuds/marryingthebed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asking to spend your potential last night on earth with your best male friend? That was a little gay.</p>
<p>Or, the dragon slayer AU that no one asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date With A Dragon Slayer

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for the Freezer Burn Contest, and is based off Tess Gratton's short story of the same name. Anything slightly original about this was stolen from that, I swear.

Steve Rogers is going to die, and there is nothing Bucky can do about it. 

Honestly, this is all his fault. Not Bucky’s, _Steve’s_ , because only Steve could think that puberty went something like this: 1) gain sixty pounds and at least ten inches in two years, 2) kill a dragon, 3) become a national hero, and 4) die at the tender young age of eighteen, all because the American people are asking you to.

Well, the dragon had kind of been Bucky’s fault, actually. See, there’d been all these rumors about a dragon hanging around the old abandoned Weaving homestead, and, well, Dum-Dum had triple-dog-dared him, what else was a red-blooded American male supposed to do? 

Except this red-blooded American male had ended up curled into a dusty corner, smoke filling his nose and his hands shaking with fear, because, wow, the history books really hadn’t been lying when they said that dragons were _big_.  

According to the reports and subsequent Lifetime movie, Steve had tussled with the dragon for a good ten minutes (tussled, that was the word they always used, and it made Bucky think of Steve and the dragon engaged in a particularly violent game of rock-paper-scissors for some reason) before managing to chop the thing’s head off, but all Bucky can really remember is blue-green blood on the floor and on his shoes and on his best friend’s hands. He’d swallowed, hard, and said “What the hell’re you doing here, Stevie?”  


Steve was breathing so hard that Bucky had worried for a second that his asthma had started acting up again. “Gabe...Gabe said you’d gone up here, and I…”

“Decided to act like a complete idiot and go running off after me?”

Steve dropped his sword. “I’m the idiot? At least I brought a sword with me! What were you going to use to fight off the damn dragon Buck, your charm?” 

And that was as far as they’d gotten, before the police had swarmed in, followed quickly by the reporters. 

Funny, really, to think a whole year’s gone by since then. A whole year without seeing Steve, except for the occasional new report or Wheaties box. And now this. Twelve hours with Steve all to himself. 

According to Bucky’s mother’s copy of People magazine, Steve had been seen going out on a number of dates, most of them with one Peggy Carter, a girl who came from a respectable line of British dragon slayers. Pretty, posh, the exact opposite of all the girls from their hometown. Maybe that’s why Steve had never shown interest in any of them--he’d been waiting for someone better to come along.

A whole year without seeing Steve, and then these reports started coming in from the Adirondacks about yet another fire-breathing monstrosity on the loose, and, well, usually one of those assholes from Europe would be called in, but now America has a dragon slayer of its very own. 

So Steve’s going to die. That’s what most of the European media outlets have been predicting, and even some of the more bitter American ones. Steve’s even become a meme--a picture of him looking particularly innocent accompanied by the words “Becomes dragon slayer/Dies,” has appeared on Bucky’s Facebook feed several times in the past few weeks. Another popular one: “Finally comes out and gets laid/Dies.”

See, Steve’s possibly final request hadn’t been the straightest. Asked by his PR team what he’d want to do with his highly-televised last night, Steve had requested that he spend it with his best friend, the very-male Bucky Barnes. The way Steve had put it, “Well, ma’am, my best memories are of Bucky sleeping over at my house, we’d put the couch cushions on the floor and stay up all night playing video games together. I--” here he broke off, looked away from the camera, “I’d like to do that again, just one more time.”

The public’s reaction had been everything from that reporter’s “Aww,’ to a radio personality claiming that he “didn’t feel safe, knowing the American people were being protected by a queer.” Most seemed to agree on one thing, though: Asking to spend your potential last night on earth with your best male friend? That was a little gay.

And they didn’t even know that Bucky had spent a certain portion of the past year jerking off to Steve’s _Vogue_ photo shoot. 

Look, what else was he supposed to do? Bucky’s a hormonal, closeted teenager, and he’s been in love with Steve ever since they’d shared a Fruit Roll-Up on the playground at the tender young age of seven. “I don’t really like the blue-red kind, do you want some?” Yeah, that’s all it’d taken to win James Buchanan Barnes over.

If he was a true masochist, he would’ve said no, but the thought of Steve sitting in some hotel room alone all night made Bucky sick, so that’s why he’s here. Here is not actually with Steve, not yet. Here is some nice New York department store, where a severe-looking woman is tying his tie for him while his mother looks on.

“Isn’t my boy handsome?” she asks the severe-looking woman, and Bucky tries not to blush. 

The employee steps back, looking at him the way he imagines a museum curator might look at a Happy Meal toy that has somehow gotten mixed in with her Very Valuable historical artifacts. “He’ll do.” 

“That’s city-speak for handsome, hon,” his mother says, and wow, he really didn’t want to walk into this dinner with a bright-red face but that’s what it looks like is going to happen.

Oh, right, and to add to the homoerotic-ness of the entire affair? Before they retire to Steve’s hotel room, he and Bucky are going to be having dinner, at what is supposedly the nicest restaurant in the city. Dinner, but definitely not a date. Nah, just Bucky, Steve, and some candlelight, nothing date-like in the slightest.

This is going to be even more awkward than Senior Prom.

The ride to the restaurant is painfully quick, just Bucky, his mother, and some reporter from the _Times_ in the backseat of a limo (and Christ, a limo? Really?). 

The reporter is pretty, perfectly-styled hair and pink lipstick. “How long have you known Steve?”

“All my life,” Bucky replies, something she already knows. The whole world knows the story of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers at this point. He hates how they all call him “Steve.” It feels too intimate. 

“Are you nervous about seeing him tonight?”

“No.” Bucky’s voice does not shake, he is mildly impressed with himself. 

“And what about tomorrow?”

“Steve’s gonna be fine. He always is.” It is hard for Bucky to subscribe to any other way of thinking. 

The restaurant is incredibly glamorous, and incredibly empty. They’ve cleared every table out of the place, except for one in the center. Steve is already sitting down, but when he sees Bucky he stands. 

Hugging Steve feels good, _right_ , just like it always has. Bucky can smell his shampoo and whatever cologne they’ve forced on him, and something underneath that, something that reminds him of being thirteen years old and stupid with love. 

“Hey, Rogers,” he says, and mentally pats himself on the back for not clinging to Steve when the hug ends. 

The look on Steve’s face is Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. “ _Bucky_ ,” he says, and then bites his lip. 

“You know we could’ve just gone out for pizza, right?” 

Dinner is forgettable. Every once and a while a flashbulb goes off and Steve blushes, but other than that it reminds Bucky of that one time they’d been invited to have dinner at their teacher’s house, and both of them had been too nervous to really say much. Steve asks Bucky how the neighborhood’s been doing, Bucky tells him, they both marvel at the fact that none of their friends, themselves included, have been grievously injured yet, and neither of them eats all that much. 

When it is (mercifully) over, Steve blushes for the millionth time and says “The hotel’s just down the street.”

It is particularly satisfying, shutting the door to Steve’s room in the reporters’ faces. Just for added measure, Bucky clicks the bolt into place.

“That really necessary, Buck?” Steve asks, teasing, and _oh_ , this is a million times better than the two of them sitting in a press-filled restaurant, awkwardly munching on escargot. This is like old times. 

The room has been outfitted with all the necessary video games and couch cushions, but other than that it feels strangely blank. Nothing like Bucky’s messy childhood bedroom, where most of their gaming sessions would take place. Bucky unknots his tie, leaves it crumpled on the otherwise pristine carpet, just for something to do. Steve does the same, and Bucky takes a moment to appreciate how good his friend looks, wearing a black suit to Bucky’s grey, undoing the top few buttons of his shirt. Their jackets are next, and then their shoes. Steve’s socks are striped, green and red, and Bucky nudges them with his own foot.

“Only thing I got to pick out,” Steve admits, sitting down against the bed and stretching his legs out so that they nearly reach the TV set. 

“So you didn’t choose this?” Bucky asks, careful not to sit too close. He can control himself.

Steve laughs. “You really think this is my style? I wanted to go home for a week. Pepper said this looked better. Rather have the reporters here than crowding your front porch, you know?”

“Oh. You know how this looks, right?” Even now Bucky is looking around, almost expecting to find condoms and lube and whatever the hell else the hotel staff thinks their gay sexcapades might require.

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Steve’s jaw clenches, and it is then that Bucky makes a decision. 

He looks up at the clock, calculates. They have eight hours before Steve is due on that mountain. “You’re gonna kill that thing.”

“Seems like you’re the only one that thinks so.” That’s just like Steve, to doubt himself like that. But Bucky’s never been able to doubt Steve, can’t afford to now. 

“Rogers,” Bucky says, and Steve looks up. “C’mere.” 

Like a good dragon slayer, Steve comes, scooting closer, ‘til they’re practically breathing the same air.

Bucky leans forward, sucks Steve’s right earlobe into his mouth. When they were sixteen they’d both gotten their ears pierced, and while it looks like Steve hasn’t worn earrings in a while (American heroes, Bucky thinks to himself absentmindedly, are not supposed to have piercings), there’s still the little hole where an earring might be. Bucky bites down on it, and Steve gasps.

“W-what’re you doing, Buck?”

Bucky, having begun to move down to that spot right below Steve’s ear, pauses. “You rather play video games?”  


Steve’s hand finds Bucky’s wrist, clamps down on it, hard. “You-you’re not obligated, all right? I know you probably, uh, feel bad for me…”

Bucky pulls away, frustrated. “And why the hell would I feel bad for you?”

“Because I’m going to die tomor--” Steve is cut off by Bucky kissing him, the type of kiss he’s been wanting to give Steve for _ages_ , soft and wet and painfully slow. A good first kiss. 

When Bucky pulls away he thinks there might still be a strand of spit connecting their mouths, but he ignores it. “I’m not here to pity you, Stevie, because you’re gonna come back from that damn mountain tomorrow, all sweaty and covered in dragon blood and looking,” he presses a quick kiss to Steve’s mouth, tongue swiping across his lower lip, “so damn _sexy_ , and then I’ll tell you all about how, during my first kiss with Suzy fucking Carmichael, I closed my eyes and pretended she was you.”

They stay there for a second, both of them breathing hard, and then Steve says “Oh,” and leans in again. 

Apparently, there _are_ condoms and lube in the hotel suite, hidden away in the bathroom. Steve and Bucky don’t get a chance to use them, though. In fact, they don’t do anything but kiss, until Bucky isn’t entirely sure where Steve’s mouth ends and his begins. Twenty minutes after Bucky’s sort-of confession, he pulls away and says “Actually, could we play video games? Our Wii broke a couple months ago and I haven’t had the chance to play any since.”

Steve looks heartbroken. “Don’t you think we could…” And right, they’re both tenting their dress pants, but Bucky just kisses that spot below Steve’s ear again (are ear fetishes a thing? They probably are), and says “Slay that damn dragon and you’ll get a blowjob, okay?” before moving to turn on the TV, ignoring Steve’s very unslayery whining. 

After a few half-assed games of Mario Kart they end up curled around each other anyway, Steve pressing kisses up and down Bucky’s face. “It’s just,” kiss, “different, you know?” 

“What, because I’m not in danger?” Bucky asks, and that earns him a soft bite. 

“No,” kiss, “because I,” kiss “I know what’s coming.” And here the kisses stop, Steve pulling away to worry at his lower lip. Bucky wants to bite it for him, so he does. 

Steve pulls away again, but only far enough that their noses are still touching. “All I’ve got is a sword and a shield, same as last time. Kinda wish they’d given me a tank instead.”

“It’s a fancier shield, isn’t it?” Bucky’d seen it on the news, made by Stark Industries, completely fireproof, painted to look like an American flag, except he didn’t remember the American flag looking like a target. 

“Yeah. Wish you could come with me.”

Bucky laughs. “What, you want a human shield, too?”

“Nah. You’re my lucky charm, s’all.”  

“You’re a sap.”

“I love you.” It’s said in a rush, and Steve tenses, seemingly ready to have to pull away again, but all Bucky does is lean forward and press a kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. 

“Love you too,” he says, and the way Steve smiles is better than any of Bucky’s fantasies. 

They must fall asleep, because they wake up to someone important-sounding banging on their door, saying that it’s “time.” Bucky watches Steve stand, only leaning down again to press a lingering kiss to Bucky’s jaw. “I’m expecting the best blowjob of my life when I get back,” he whispers.

Bucky smiles sleepily. “Mmm, because you’ve received so many blowjobs, right? What was the name of that girl everybody said you were dating?”  


Steve blushes, says that nothing ever happened between him and Peggy, then rolls his eyes when he realizes Bucky’s joking, comes back down for another kiss like it’s what he deserves. 

Bucky gives it to him, says “Go kick that dragon’s ass for me, babe.” Closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch Steve leave. The door shuts, and Bucky lays there for a long time. It’s barely dawn, so he considers going back to sleep, but instead he sits up, turns on the TV. “Countdown to the Slaying,” CNN says. 

He’s going to watch Steve walk up that damn mountain.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr as bimarvel, thanks for reading! And voting for the contest begins around October 25th, so don't forget to vote!


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